When We Talk About Collaborative Curriculum-Making, What Are We Talking About?

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to unpack the often taken-for-granted notion of collaborative curriculum-making within the context of writing instruction. The study focuses on a group of writing teachers, participants in a staff development program, who have transformed their view of writing instruction and have come to understand it as an activity of collaborative curriculum-making. From their stories, we gain a better understanding of the possible dimensions of this complex idea.

The study first explores the individual meanings that the teachers assigned to collaborative curriculum-making and the themes associated with collaboration. It then looks at what their stories have in common and how they resonate with the three loci of concern directing the staff development project: the role of authority, the significance of personal knowledge and the regard for differences.